An open collection of baseball's little-known records and curiosities.

"He would have been among the league leaders in batting average for a majority of the season had he had enough plate appearances." -- 2008 St. Louis Cardinals Media Guide about non-roster invitee Mark Johnson

Friday, April 18, 2008

Team Scoreless Streaks and SHO%

Last weekend, regular reader Ken alerted me to the fact the Royals hadn't scored in 26 innings (they scored in the first inning the next day). He noted that he didn't think this was a record for them but thought it might be an interesting topic for a post. I thought that was a good idea and looked up the Royals record (32 innings from July 5 through July 9, 2004). Unfortunately, the numbers for other teams were harder to figure out, at least the way I was approaching the task, so I decided to look up a couple other shutout-related team numbers.

First up is the longest streak of consecutive games in which each MLB team has been shut out since 1956. I've also noted the frequency of that number of consecutive games for each team and the dates of the most recent such stretch of games.

Consecutive Games Shut Out For Each MLB Team, 1956-2007

Team

Games

Frequency

Start

End

Arizona Diamondbacks

2

4

5/29/2004

5/30/2004

Atlanta Braves

4

1

5/8/1985

5/12/1985

Baltimore Orioles

3

1

7/29/1957

7/31/1957

Boston Red Sox

3

3

4/27/1981

4/29/1981

Chicago Cubs

4

2

4/27/1992

5/1/1992

Chicago White Sox

3

4

7/21/1968

7/24/1968

Cincinnati Reds

3

1

4/18/1989

4/21/1989

Cleveland Indians

3

5

6/12/1991

6/14/1991

Colorado Rockies

2

4

7/21/2007

7/22/2007

Detroit Tigers

3

4

9/29/1995

10/1/1995

Florida Marlins

2

6

6/21/2005

6/22/2005

Houston Astros

4

2

9/9/1966

9/11/1966

Kansas City Royals

3

1

7/5/2004

7/7/2004

Los Angeles Angels

3

1

6/24/1978

6/26/1978

Los Angeles Dodgers

3

3

8/5/2007

8/8/2007

Milwaukee Brewers

3

1

5/3/1972

5/6/1972

Minnesota Twins

4

1

9/19/1958

9/22/1958

New York Mets

3

3

7/25/1992

7/27/1992

New York Yankees

3

3

7/27/1975

7/28/1975

Oakland Athletics

3

4

9/9/1979

9/12/1979

Philadelphia Phillies

3

7

5/20/1983

5/24/1983

Pittsburgh Pirates

3

3

8/28/1968

8/30/1968

San Diego Padres

3

3

7/5/1976

7/7/1976

San Francisco Giants

3

3

6/23/1992

6/25/1992

Seattle Mariners

2

23

7/21/2007

7/22/2007

St. Louis Cardinals

3

2

10/2/1976

10/3/1976

Tampa Bay Rays

2

4

4/28/2004

4/29/2004

Texas Rangers

4

1

9/1/1964

9/5/1964

Toronto Blue Jays

3

2

8/24/1990

8/26/1990

Washington Nationals

3

3

4/13/2004

4/15/2004

That table might not have been particularly thrilling. I do think it's interesting how the Mariners have hit two games in a row so often but never quite made it to three in a row. While I was looking up shutout data, I decided to check out the number of times shut out and total games played for each franchise since 1956. Obviously expansion teams have played fewer games and many have the advantage of playing in more run-friendly era for most of their existence, but it should be interesting nonetheless.